The Black Prince Characters

As an undeniably flaky twenty-year-old woman who's pursued one half-baked career idea after another and abandoned them all, Julian Baffin may seem like an odd choice for a romantic heroine. Even Br...

Arnold Baffin. The Baffmeister. Baffy Duck. Baffy the Bestselling Slayer. Okay, okay, we're making these up.Still, in the world of The Black Prince, Arnold Baffin might well be the most important c...

Early on, Bradley Pearson tells us that Rachel Baffin is not only "one of the main actors" in "The Black Prince," but is "in a crucial sense perhaps the main actor" (1.3.38). Wow. Okay. So what doe...

Christian who?This lady's had a lot of different surnames. Born Christian Marloe, she becomes Christian Pearson when she marries her first husband, Bradley Pearson. Next, she becomes Christian Evan...

Francis Marloe has one of the least flattering introductions in a novel that you're likely to come across anytime soon—and that's even counting Bradley Pearson's introduction of Rachel Baffin. Se...

Get ready to meet the most mysterious character in The Black Prince—more mysterious even than the unreliable Bradley Pearson, whose words guide—or mislead—us through most of the novel. Who is...

If you've taken a gander at Bradley Pearson's character analysis, then you'll already know that Bradley's sister, Priscilla Saxe, is one of the novel's two Ophelia figures. In fact, Priscilla is th...

Bradley Pearson's parents aren't living characters in The Black Prince, but Bradley mentions them in more than one of his many reflections throughout the novel, and their quirks, foibles, anxieties...

Marigold is the long-established mistress of Roger Saxe—and the woman who'll inherit Priscilla Saxe's marriage, house, and husband after Priscilla is dead and gone. At thirty years old, Marigold...

Hartbourne (whose first name we never learn) is one of Bradley Pearson's friends and former coworkers from his years as a tax inspector. Bradley describes him as being "a typical denizen of my grea...

Septimus Leech is a glorious name, and we sort of suspect that Bradley Pearson came up with it himself. According to Bradley, Septimus Leech was the "friend" of Julian Baffin who bought the tickets...

Rigby is Bradley Pearson's upstairs neighbor—a young man Bradley describes as "a shadowy youth" (1.18.131). Rigby is gay, and although he doesn't appear often in The Black Prince, he does play on...

Oscar Belling is the name of the ex-boyfriend Julian Baffin is just getting over at the start of Bradley Pearson's narrative. It's his love letters that have been torn up and thrown into the road l...

Not only is Evandale another of the male figures who appear in The Black Prince without ever having first names attached to them, but he's also another of the characters who doesn't actually make a...

Grey-Pelham is a former coworker of Bradley Pearson, and part of a group of men who apparently burst into flames if they ever use one another's first names. We don't know much about him other than...